It’s actually a pretty big decision and I don’t know why I’ve never read a blog post on it. I never heard anyone talk about this, and I never thought to talk with anyone about it, maybe because everyone has such different views on marriage in general and what different name change options would say about you. Even when you Google “name change after marriage,” the whole first page is about the process of changing your name and not what to change it to. I’m sure I’m not the only one who would have benefitted from reading something like this.

I initially didn’t like the idea of changing my name. This is what I had been called my whole life. I didn’t want to be called something else just because I made the decision to get married. Changing my name would mean having to update everything from my driver’s license to my Amazon shipping information to my paperwork at my job. I really didn’t want to go through all those processes, in addition to having to update pretty much everyone I knew. The reason I did change my name was because I wanted our eventual family to all be under one name. “The Gows” wouldn’t include me if my last name was Scott or Scott-Gow. People wouldn’t know to associate me with Dan or our future children. So I eventually decided that I wanted to be a Gow, but what would come between Christine and Gow?

For other people, there are several factors to consider. I know professors who didn’t change their names so they can still be tied to different works they’ve published. Other professors might marry another professor in the same department and not want to be confused with each other. Some use a hyphenated name. One of my professors made her husband’s last name her middle name instead of the other way around. Some people change their name, but still choose to be known professionally as the name everyone knows. Carrie Underwood, for example, is not known to the public as Carrie Fisher, partially because so many people know her as Carrie Underwood, and partially because she could be confused with Princess Leia.

After deciding what your last name will be, you have to decide what you want your middle name to be. For some people, it’s an easy choice if they don’t like their middle or last name, or if it’s a name that they don’t want to be associated with anymore. I like my middle name and I didn’t like the idea of completely replacing my family name. Plus, I had Christine Scott Photography going for me, but it would be weird if Scott wasn’t part of my name anymore. I don’t think I really knew what I wanted my middle name to be until over a month after I was married.

This brings me to the legal process of name changes, which can vary by state. In South Carolina, you can change your middle and last name to reflect your spouse’s name after becoming legally married. Based on those rules, my options were Christine Laureana Scott, Christine Scott Gow, or Christine Laureana Gow (side note: Laureana is pronounced Laurie-Anna and it was my great-grandma’s name). Somehow, I got away with making “Laureana Scott” my legal middle name without anyone questioning me. I don’t know what my plan would have been if I’d been told that wasn’t allowed or if I didn’t have enough space on the form.

Here’s where it gets complicated: if you don’t go by your first name, you will need a court order to legally change your name to the one everyone calls you. This applies to people who go by their middle names, their last names, a nickname, or just another name they’ve chosen for themselves. According to the South Carolina Legislature’s website, “A person who desires to change his name may petition, in writing, a family court judge in the appropriate circuit, setting forth the reason for the change, his age, his place of residence and birth, and the name by which he desires to be known,” as well as a series of background checks and an affidavit.

If monograms or initials are important to you, that’s something you’ll want to think about before making a legal name change. Remember the Big Bang Theory episode where they name their teams “Perpetual Motion Squad” and “Army Ants,” not realizing what the acronyms would be on their shirts? Or what if your initials don’t spell anything, but your monogram does? As for initials, I always thought “Christine S” sounded weird, maybe because it was rare for me to need to be distinguished from another Christine, so “Christine S Gow” sounded weird to me too. The only times I see “Christine L Gow” are in places like my bank account. My signature is “Christine L Gow” because that’s what my credit card says and my signature is on the back. On a side note, Dan and I recently realized that the “G” looks different in our signatures. His G looks like the one on the General Mills logo and mine looks like the one on the Goody hair accessories logo.

There are online services that will automate the process for you. I considered this since the DMV here wasn’t open when I wasn’t at work, but I read some negative reviews about the online services and decided I didn’t want to risk my legal name getting messed up. I read that you’re supposed to go to the social security office before the DMV, so that’s what I did once I had a day off work. I believe I was required to bring two forms of ID, which can include your driver’s license, your passport, your social security card, and your birth certificate. I got there right when it opened and there was already a huge line across the front of the building. I had some photography work to do, so I brought that with me in anticipation of a long wait. The wait at the social security office was actually longer than the wait at the DMV, but I was able to sit down right away at the social security office.

I hope this has provided some insight to you as you get ready for this big change!

Seeing your images for the first time is always such a fun experience, but deciding on what to do with the images can be difficult. You probably value being able to share them on social media or hanging your favorites in your home, but what else is there to consider? Here are some of the benefits of having digital files, prints, and albums.

Digital Files

When I was in middle or high school, a friend mentioned not having any baby pictures. I couldn’t understand why since my family had so many pictures of me from when I was little. His parents did take pictures of him when he was little, but his house had burned down when he was in elementary school, and any pictures that were in that house were gone. This was before digital photography became the norm, so any pictures they had that were taken before the fire were either copied from photos given to friends and family, or from the school’s database of school pictures.

This is the biggest reason why I never think twice about offering digital files. Another reason is that it’s always nice to be able to share your photos with so many friends and family members at once and to have them on your phone whenever you want to show someone, and you can get more prints if you need to years after I’ve given you the files. But only having digital files isn't ideal for every situation.

Prints

When I got engaged, my grandma, who was losing her memory, asked me every time we talked on the phone what my ring looked like. It was kind of hard to describe, so I texted a picture to my aunt, who I knew visited her often. Still, my grandma would ask me during every conversation what it looked like, insisting that my aunt had never shown her the photo, even though I knew she had several times. My grandma didn’t have access to a cell phone or a computer, so she couldn't see a digital file unless someone came and showed it to her, which we already knew wasn't working out. I printed off a photo and mailed it to her, along with some photos from our engagement session. That way, they could hang on the fridge she passed every day, and she wouldn’t forget what my ring looked like or whose ring it was.

So why would you want to order prints if you can just print the digital files yourself?

The short answer I give in my portrait guide is that I give you the option to order prints from a professional lab so that they’ll last longer over time and look closer to what you see on your screen. Plus, it’s easier than downloading the photos and re-uploading them to wherever you’re printing them.

As for lasting over time, I always think back to the section of the athletic hallway at my high school with all the photos of teams that won state titles. The color and clarity on some of these photos was pretty typical for the years printed on them—large, pixelated photos with overexposed faces from the 80s and 90s, and then smaller black and white photos from the 70s. Then there was an ivory-colored piece of paper in a frame, where you could see outlines of something if you got really close to it in good lighting. It was on a wall that faced away from the windows, presumably moved away from the sun a few years too late, but it was still there as a reminder that some team had won a state title sometime. I'm not sure that any teachers could tell us what the picture was, but I was sure that the team members would be upset if they came back to visit and the important picture of their winning team was all but gone from the wall

As for color, I went to Clemson. Sometimes, I would take photos of athletes and their uniforms would look orange and blue instead of orange and purple. Other times, the orange in their uniforms would look like Tennessee orange or Texas orange, or even red. I worked hard in my editing to make sure the colors in my photos looked like what I saw in person. Still, I soon realized that this didn’t always matter if I was printing from the least expensive print source I could get to, because the print could be more yellow or blurry than the file I sent. In college, I'd either pick up smaller prints from a pharmacy in a flimsy envelope, or the larger ones would be mailed to me in a cardboard tube. Not even millimeters separated my prints from whatever could be happening outside. What if a bigger package fell on it? What if I spilled something on the envelope on the drive home? Well, I can assure you that the prints that come from my galleries come from the same lab as the photos that hang on my walls. They came in thick boxes with tons of layers, and you can see that our wedding colors are CLEARLY purple and orange.

Albums

Let’s go back to my grandma: my dad made my grandma an album of family photos he had scanned, dating back to before my grandparents were married. He said that when he showed her the photos, she was suddenly able to recall specific details about the photos. Around that time, I made my sister's wedding album as her wedding gift, and my dad asked me to make another copy for my grandma. I sometimes had to describe my cousins' weddings to her, even though she was at all of them, and we wanted her to remember how happy she was at my sister's wedding. The album had pictures of the extended family, my sister’s accessories, and the sign they got with their names and wedding date on it. She could pick it up from her coffee table and remember what my sister’s new last name was, the date of the wedding, who was there, and what everything looked like. And someday, my sister and her husband won’t remember that day so well, and they’ll have the album to show their kids.

I decided to make my own wedding album because it’s something I like to do. And I did make it…a year after my wedding. It wouldn’t surprise me if other couples planned to make their own and just never did. Unless you’re like me and you’re obsessed with detail shots, you probably won’t have prints of your shoes and rings hanging on your wall, but you would want to have some photos in your album that highlighted some of the important items from your wedding day, like any heirlooms or the lace on your veil that you love so much. You wouldn’t hang pictures that included every guest, but you’d put some of them in an album so you can remember who was there. Plus, looking through my grandparents’ wedding album is so much fun because everything was so different back then, and it’s only when I look at those photos that my family and I see how much I look like my grandma.

My approach to delivering photos has always been to serve you the best I can without making things too complicated for you. Everyone has different photography needs, so hopefully this has helped you get a better idea of what your needs are. Thanks for reading!

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